Which else should free have wrought. Ban. All's well. I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters: To you they have show'd some truth. I think not of them: Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, We would spend it in some words upon that business, At your kind'st leisure. Ban. 20 25 fective, and we only had it in our power to show the king our willingness to serve him. Had we received sufficient notice of his coming, our zeal should have been more clearly manifested by our acts. Which refers, not to the last antecedent, defect, but to will. 18, 19. to...else] DANIEL (p. 71). Read, 'to effect Which, else,' &c. 19. wrought] ABBOTT ( 484). See note on I, ii, 5. 20. weird] ABBOTT (2 485). Monosyllables containing a vowel followed by 'r' are often prolonged. So also in III, iv, 133, IV, i, 136, and I, iii, 32. 22. to serve] CLARENDON. When we can prevail upon an hour of your time to be at our service. Macbeth's language is here that of exaggerated courtesy, which to the audience, who are in the secret, marks his treachery the more strongly. Now that the crown is within his grasp, he seems to adopt the royal 'we' by anticipation. 25, 26. cleave....you] JOHNSON. Macbeth expresses his thought with affected obscurity; he does not mention the royalty, though he apparently had it in his mind. If you shall cleave to my consent, if you shall concur with me when I determine to accept the crown, when 'tis, when that happens which the prediction promises, it shall make honour for you. HEATH (Revisal, &c., p. 385). If you shall cleave to that party which consents to my advancement, whenever the opportunity may offer. JENNENS. I should rather think something is lost here, of the following purport: Ban. 'At your kind'st leisure. Those lookers into fate, that hail'd you, Cawdor! Most worthy Thane, you would consent to accept STEEVENS. Consent' has sometimes the power of the Latin concentus. Thus in 2 Hen. IV: V, i, 79; As You Like It, II, ii, 3. Macbeth mentally refers to the crown he expected to obtain in consequence of the murder he was about to commit. In seeking to augment it, but still keep I shall be counsell'd. Macb. 30 30. [Exeunt...] Theob. Exit Banquo. Ff, Rowe, Pope. [Exeunt Banquo and Fleance. Servant Cap. Exeunt....and Banquo's reply is only that of a man who determines to combat every possible temptation to do ill. Macbeth could never mean, while yet the success of his attack on the life of Duncan was uncertain, to afford Banquo the most dark or distant hint of his criminal designs on the crown. Had he acted thus incautiously, Banquo would naturally have become his accuser, as soon as the murder had been discovered. MALONE. A passage in The Temp., II, i, 269, leads me to think that Sh. wrote content. The meaning then of the present difficult passage, thus corrected, will be: If you will closely adhere to my cause, if you will promote, as far as you can, what is likely to contribute to my satisfaction and content,—when 'tis, when the prophecy of the weird sisters is fulfilled, when I am seated on the throne, the event shall make honour for you. See Davenant's paraphrase. COLLIER. If you shall adhere to my opinion, when that leisure arrives, it shall make honour for you.' ELWIN. If you shall hold to what I consent to do, when 'tis done, it shall be to your advantage.' HUDSON. The meaning evidently is, if you will stick to my side, to what has my consent; if you will tie yourself to my fortunes and counsel. STAUNTON. This passage, we apprehend, has suffered some mutilation or corruption since it left the poet's hands. It seems impracticable to obtain a consistent meaning from the lines as they now stand. WHITE. This may mean, to those who agree with me, to my party. But I think there is not improbably a misprint of consort.' As in Two Gent. of Ver., IV, i, 64, Wilt thou be of our consort?' and in Lear, II, i, 99, ' He was of that consort.' DELIUS. If you will cleave to the agreement with me, it shall in due time make honour for you. Consent' is, perhaps through being confounded with concent, more than a mere passive agreement or understanding, just as to consent is used in this more expanded sense in Oth., V, ii, 297. . (Lex.-The use of a more explicit word would have betrayed him.) CLARKE. If you will adopt and adhere to my opinion, when my mind is made up. KEIGHTLEY. I cannot make sense of consent.' CLARENDON. If you shall adhere to my party, then, when the result is attained, it shall make honour for you. 'When 'tis probably means when that business (line 23) is effected.' If 'consent' be the right reading, it may be explained either as above, or as 'the plan I have formed.' [BAILEY (ii, 25) conjectures ascent, but according to the Camb. ed. he is anticipated by CAPELL. ED.] 30. Exeunt, &c.] COLLIER. Fleance no doubt stood back while his father and Macb. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.-[Exit Servant. Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?—Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, As this which now I draw. Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;— 31. SCENE II. Pope, Han. Warb. Johns. 32. [Exit Servant.] Exit. Ff. 35 40 41-43. As....use.] End the lines me ....instrument....use. Walker (Crit., iii, 253). Macbeth were talking together, and he goes out with Banquo, still carrying the torch. This was part of the economy of the old stage, which could not spare a performer merely for the purpose of carrying a torch, which might be borne by Fleance. When Macbeth enters with a servant, the servant with a torch' is expressly mentioned in the Ff., and Macbeth has to send a necessary message by him to Lady M. 31. drink] ELWIN. This night-cup or posset was an habitual indulgence of the time. SEYMOUR. Macbeth wanted no such mechanical signal as a bell for the performance of the murder; the bell, which afterwards strikes, is the clock, which accidentally, and with much more solemnity, reminds him it is time to despatch. 32. strike] CLARENDON. That she strike' or 'strike' would have been the natural construction after bid.' She strike' would not have been used but for the intervening parenthesis. 33. Is this] SEYMOUR. This is always delivered on the stage with an expression of terror as well as surprise, but I am persuaded it is a misconception: if the vision were indeed terrible, the irresolute spirit of Macbeth would shrink from it; but the effect is confidence and animation, and he tries to lay hold of the dagger; and indeed upon what principle of reason, or on what theory of the mind, can it be presumed that the appearance of supernatural agency, to effect the immediate object of our wish, should produce dread and not encouragement? ELWIN. Macbeth entertains a suspicious doubt of the reality of the dagger until it assumes, without apparent cause, a bloody appearance, when he at once dismisses it as fanciful. 36. sensible] CLARENDON. Capable of being perceived by the senses. Johnson gives as an example of this meaning from Hooker: By reason man attaineth unto the knowledge of things that are and are not sensible.' It does not appear to be used elsewhere by Sh. in this objective sense. 41. ABBOTT. See note I, ii, 20. Macbeth may be supposed to draw his dagger after this short line. Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, 41-45. As...still;] Five lines, ending me....instrument....fools....rest.—.... still; Ktly. 45 46. thy blade and dudgeon] the blade of th' dudgeon Warb. 44, 45. mine...rest] DELIUS. If the dagger be unreal, then his eyes are befooled by the other senses, which prove its unreality. But if the dagger is something more than a phantom, then his eyes, by means of which alone he has perceived it, are worth all the other senses put together. 46. dudgeon] STEEVENS. Though dudgeon sometimes signifies a dagger, it more properly means the haft or handle of a dagger. Thus Stanyhurst's Virgil, 1583: 'Well fare thee, haft with the dudgeon dagger? NARES. Abr. Fleming, in his Nomenclator, from Junius, says, 'Manubrium apiatum, a dudgeon-haft.' P. 275. Which the Cambridge Dict. of 1693 explains by 'A dudgeon-haft, manubrium appiatum (r. apiatum) or buxeum.' Here we have the key to the whole secret. It was a box-handle; which Bishop Wilkins completely confirms in the Alphabetical Dictionary appended to his Essay towards a Real Character, 1668: 'Dudgeon, root of box,' and 'Dudgeon-dagger, a small sword whose handle is of the root of box. This is likewise confirmed by Gerrard, under the article Box-tree: The root is likewise yellow, and . . . more fit for dagger-hafts, and such like uses. . . . Turners and cutlers, if I mistake not the matter, doe call this wood dudgeon, wherewith they make dudgeon-hafted daggers.' The explanations and etymologies of dudgeon by Skinner and Junius are perfectly unsatisfactory. SINGER (ed. 2). It has not been remarked that there is a peculiar propriety in giving the word to Macbeth, the Scottish daggers having generally the handles of box-wood. Thus Torriano has: 'A Scotch or dudgeon haft dagger? DYCE (Gloss.). Gifford, speaking of the variety in the hafts of daggers, observes: 'The homeliest was that à roëlles, a plain piece of wood with an orbicular rim of iron for a guard; the next, in degree, was the dudgeon, in which the wood was gouged out in crooked channels, like what is now, and perhaps was then, called snail-creeping.'-Note on Jonson's Works, v, 221. Richardson, however, denies that dudgeon means either 'wooden' or 'root of box,' though the word may be applied as an epithet to the box or any other wood, to express some particular quality,' &c. Dict. in v. CLARENDON. In the will of John Amell, dated 1473, quoted in Arnold's Chronicles, p. 245, ed. 1811, he bequeaths all my stuf beyng in my shoppe, that is to saye, yuery, dogeon [i. e., dudgeon], horn, mapyll, and the toel yt belongeth to my crafte,' &c. The only plausible derivations yet suggested are (1) the German degen, a sword, or, still better, (2) dolchen, a dagger. Cotgrave gives 'Dague à roëlles. A Scottish dagger; or Dudgeon haft dagger.' 46. gouts] STEEVENS. Gouts is the technical term for the spots on some part of the plumage of a hawk. In heraldry, when a field is charged or sprinkled with red drops, it is said to be gutty of gules. The same word occurs in The Art of Good Lyving and Good Deyng, 1503; Befor the jugement all herbys shal sweyt read goutys of water, as blood.' CLARENDON. Drops, from the French goutte, and, according to stage tradition, so Which was not so before. There's no such thing: 49. Thus] This Rowe ii, Pope, Han. the one half-world] one half the world Pope,+. 51. sleep] sleepe FF2. sleeper Steev. conj. Rann, H. Rowe, Sing. Coll. ii, (MS), Ktly. 50 51. witchcraft] now witchcraft Dav. Rowe, Cap. Steev. Var. Dyce ii, Huds. ii. while witchcraft Nicholson.* pronounced. Gowtyth' for 'droppeth' occurs in an Old English MS. (Halliwell, Archaic & Prov. Dict., s. v.). 49. one half-world] JOHNSON. That is, 'over our hemisphere all action and motion seem to have ceased.' This image, which is, perhaps, the most striking that poetry can produce, has been adopted by Dryden in his Conquest of Mexico: 'All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead, The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head; And sleeping flow'rs beneath the night dews sweat. These lines, though so well known, I have transcribed, that the contrast between them and this passage of Sh. may be more accurately observed. Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Sh., nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lulled with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Sh., looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover; the other, of a murderer. MALONE. So, in the second part of Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 1602: "Tis yet dead night; yet all the earth is clutch'd In the dull leaden hand of snoring sleep. No breath disturbs the quiet of the air, No spirit moves upon the breast of earth, Save howling dogs, night-crows, and screeching owls, Save meagre ghosts, Piero, and black thoughts. I am great in blood, Unequal'd in revenge :-you horrid scouts That sentinel swart night, give loud applause From your large palms.' [For the pronunciation of 'one' in Sh.'s time, see WALKER, Crit., ii, 90, Abbott, 80, and GRANT WHITE'S English Pronunciation of the Elizabethan Era in Sh.'s Works, vol. xii, p. 426. See also III, iv, 131; V, viii, 74. ED.] 51. curtain'd sleep] STEEVENS. Milton has transplanted this image into his Comus, v. 554: steeds That draw the litter of close-curtain'd sleep.' RITSON. Sleeper (Steevens's conjecture) is clearly Sh.'s own word. KNIGHT. We have no doubt that Sh. introduced the long pause [between 'sleep' and witchcraft'] to add to the solemnity of the description. COLLIER. The insertion of now before witchcraft' is surely injurious, as re |